apage

Forms

apage (imperative only; often followed by sīs)^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἄπαγε (ápage, “lead away!, go away!”),^[2][3][1] the imperative of ἀπάγω (apágō, “to lead away”).^[1][4] That verb is a compound of ἀπό (apó, “away”) and ἄγω (ágō, “to lead”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found in Plautus,^[2][5][4] who uses it without an object to mean “be off!”: apage, non placet me hoc noctis esse, “away! I don't like being out at this time of night”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it belongs to comedy and the epistolary style and that Cicero never uses it.^[3] It is used on its own or with an accusative of the person or thing to be sent away, as Plautus' apage istas a me sorores and Terence's apage te, and often with sīs, “if you please”.^[2][3] From a dismissal it became a rejection of an idea, “nonsense!, out of the question!”, as when a character in Plautus answers a proposal to flee home with apage: it would not become them to imitate runaways.^[2] It also appears in a letter of Vatinius to Cicero^[2][3] and in Apuleius.^[2] Ancient glossaries explain it as “go away”, and a note on Apuleius calls it a Greek word for “dismiss, depart or stop”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, “be off!” and “nonsense!”.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence has apage te and apage sīs.^[2][4]
• 2nd half of the 2nd century BC – Afranius has apage sīs.^[2][4]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius still uses it.^[2][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (imperative, often as an interjection) Away!, be off!, begone!; with an accusative, away with …!^[2][3][1]
2. (rejecting a proposal) Nonsense!, out of the question!^[2]

Related words

• agō

Usage notes

It is a Greek imperative used in Latin like an interjection, constructed, as Lewis & Short note, like ō, ah and ēn.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften